By Maria-José Viñas, adapted by Kathryn Hansen4 August 2016 (NASA) – Though it seems counter-intuitive, Greenland’s thick ice sheet actually insulates the bedrock below from the cold air temperatures at the surface. As a result, the bottom of the ice—slowly warmed by heat coming from Earth’s depths—can be tens of degrees warmer than at the […]
By Rebecca Morelle2 August 2016 (BBC News) – One of the last known groups of woolly mammoths died out because of a lack of drinking water, scientists believe. The Ice Age beasts were living on a remote island off the coast of Alaska, and scientists have dated their demise to about 5,600 years ago. They […]
By Laura Snider10 August 2016 BOULDER, Colorado (NCAR) – Greenhouse gases are already having an accelerating effect on sea level rise, but the impact has so far been masked by the cataclysmic 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, according to a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Satellite […]
By Matthew Carney; photography by Wayne McAllister25 July 2016 (ABC News) – Deep in the Himalayas sits a remote research station that is tracking an alarming trend in climate change, with implications that could disrupt the lives of more than one billion people and pitch the most populated region of the world into chaos. The […]
By Karen B. Roberts and Maria-Jose Viñas; editing by Karl Hille8 July 2016 (NASA) – Climate has influenced the distribution patterns of Adélie penguins across Antarctica for millions of years. The geologic record tells us that as glaciers expanded and covered Adélie breeding habitats with ice, penguins in the region abandoned their colonies. When the […]
By Chris Mooney 23 June 2016 (Washington Post) – Here at the Energy and Environment blog, we cover, regularly, the tipping points of climate change — how, for instance, the glaciers of West Antarctica may already have passed a key threshold that leads to unstoppable melt. We cover the history of the Earth’s climate — […]
By Elvira Jiménez and Erlend Tellnes20 June 2016 (Greenpeace) – The beauty of the Arctic is overwhelming. The cold, the silence and extraordinary sounds as the ice creaks, rumbles and falls. The pristine environment, with life popping out to welcome you when you least expect it. A unique place that people across the world […]
WASHINGTON, DC, 1 June 2016 (AGU) – Part of Antarctica has been losing ice to the ocean for far longer than had been expected, satellite pictures reveal. A study of images along 2000 kilometers (1,240 miles) of West Antarctica’s coastline has shown the loss of about 1000 square kilometers (about 390 square miles) of ice […]
By Jason Samenow and Angela Fritz 10 June 2016 (Washington Post) – Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, soared to 75 degrees (24 Celsius) Thursday, marking the warmest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic country during June. Nuuk sits on Greenland’s southwest coast, where the country’s warmest weather typically occurs. It was warmer in Nuuk than it was […]
By Joe Romm 15 May 2016 (Climate Progress) – A record fire-storm in Canada fueled by record warmth. Record ice-melt in Greenland and the Arctic sea, driven by off-the-charts warmth in the far north. And, NASA reported Friday, we’ve just been through the hottest April and the hottest January-April on record — by far. Last […]
